The Hemlock Queen, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Hannah Whitten
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover illustration by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative
Cover background image by Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2024 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map by Charis Loke
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Whitten, Hannah, author.
Title: The hemlock queen / Hannah Whitten.
Description: First edition. | New York : Orbit, 2024. | Series: The nightshade crown ; book 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2023036442 | ISBN 9780316435291 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316435499 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3623.H5864 H46 2024 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20230816
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023036442
ISBNs: 9780316435291 (hardcover), 9780316577120 (BarnesAndNoble.com signed edition), 9780316435499 (ebook)
E3-20240113-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Epigraphs
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Ninteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present,
All time is unredeemable.
—T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”
The young man said he found the Fount,
For which he had long sought.
He found it on the Golden Mount,
And all his questions brought.
He asked about the sun and he asked about the sea,
He asked about wind, moon, and fire,
The earth beneath his knees.
The Fount answered his questions
So he moved on to requests,
His reason was eternal life,
Endless, with no need to rest.
The Fount said that it wouldn’t work, It said there was no way,
Not while he was human
And a human he would stay.
So he brought his friends and lovers,
He sailed them to the Mount,
And they drank the soul of everything
Out of the gleaming Fount.
—Auverrani tavern song, outlawed in 400 BGF,
when the Church was established on the
mainland and the pantheon officially
recognized as divine
CHAPTER ONE
Everything is everything. All powers move together and come from the same source.
—A prophecy of Elan Adabbo, Kadmaran
monk. Deemed unnecessary for
cataloging when sent for consideration
to the Priest Exalted.
There were many things Lore didn’t feel like doing today. Getting up early. Choking down breakfast. Her head felt like it was inhabited by a thousand tiny men with hammers, courtesy of the wine she’d downed before bed to make sure she didn’t dream. The combination of ache and dry, sour mouth made even the most delicate pastries taste like something from a refuse pile. Getting dressed also wasn’t high up on her list of things she wanted to do, and she’d let Juliette, her lady’s maid, stuff her into a pale-peach gown that really did nothing for her coloring just because she didn’t have the energy to fight about it. That was typical for her, these days. Not having the energy to fight about things.
But out of all that, entering the catacombs was still number one on her list of things she absolutely, positively did not want to do.
“Are you ready?” Bastian stared into the newly opened well, his dark brows slashed low over his eyes. The gleam of the rising sun made them a lighter brown, rich and whiskey-colored. A slight golden phosphorescence swirled around his fingers, light gathered from the air, faint enough that it might be imagined.
Lore knew it wasn’t.
The Presque Mort ringing the well couldn’t see the Spiritum, since they couldn’t channel it. Still, they eyed the Sainted King with a layering of trepidation and awe that didn’t mix quite right.
For all that he was the herald of their god’s return, in power if not in flesh, the Presque Mort still didn’t seem to care much for Bastian Arceneaux.
“No,” Lore answered, even though she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. No, she wasn’t ready to go back down into the dark. No, she wasn’t ready to try to lay all those corpses to rest, the victims of the Mortem that Anton had pulled out of her and sent to kill entire villages overnight.
But they were her victims. Her responsibility.
And even as she told herself that the very last thing she wanted to do was channel Mortem, her fingers still itched for it.
Bastian glanced at her as if he’d heard the thought. Both of them. But when he turned away from the well and reached up to cup her cheek, he only addressed the first. “It wasn’t your fault, Lore,” he murmured, an endless repetition he’d kept up for the three weeks since his father had died. His coronation wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, but he held himself like a King already. “It was Anton, not you.”
But Anton wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. Lore’s ability to channel the magic leaking from the body of the Buried Goddess, interred beneath the Citadel, had made all his plans possible. Power he’d waited for, watching her grow up, watching her inch closer and closer to a destiny she couldn’t escape before bringing her here and snaring Bastian, too.
Her fault. All of it.
But Lore didn’t argue. This wasn’t something that could be left undone.
He gave her a worried look, lips drawn to a line. “You don’t have to do this. I can probably figure out a way—”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I’m here. I’m doing it.”
Bastian searched her face, his hand still on her cheek. He touched her so casually, heedless of whoever might be watching. Lore was still getting used to that. She was so accustomed to being something secret.
Finally, he nodded.
As if waiting for the signal, the Presque Mort who’d volunteered to accompany them stepped forward. Only one of them had, though this trip underground would have official Priest Exalted dispensation. The remainders of the holy order still weren’t keen on entering the catacom
The Priest Exalted stood behind the open well, still dressed in black Presque Mort clothes instead of the white robe of his station. The Bleeding God’s Heart pendant hung around his neck, though, winking in the afternoon light.
He met Lore’s eyes for a heartbeat, one blue, the other hidden behind black leather. Then he looked away.
Bastian ignored the Priest Exalted entirely. But when Lore’s gaze tracked from Gabe back to him, he gave her a small, sorrow-tinged smile, as if the other man’s indifference hurt him, too.
“We’ll be fine,” Bastian murmured, low enough for only the two of them to hear. “We’ll be fine.”
The Presque Mort who would be accompanying them into the catacombs was named Jerault, and Lore was fairly certain the only reason he’d volunteered was because he and Bastian used to be lovers and the monk still held a candle for him. Apparently, Gabe was one of the only monks who took that particular vow so seriously. When Bastian laughingly told her of his and Jerault’s history last night over dinner, she’d felt the mortifying sting of tears, though she’d hidden it in her wine.
Jerault was handsome, maybe a year younger than Lore, with golden hair and gray eyes that narrowed slightly with the observance of how close the King and his deathwitch stood. When Bastian turned to the well, Jerault let out something close to a longing sigh.
It was almost funny, the way everyone was so convinced she and Bastian were sleeping together.
On the other side of the well, Gabe kept his silence, his mouth a thin line beneath the shadow of his eye patch. Lore expected him to say something, or at least to force his face into an expression that wasn’t blank with the barest seasoning of disapproval. But he did nothing.
He’d raged at the idea of her going down there with Bastian, once. It’d bothered him enough to go to Anton, to betray everything, and now he acted like he didn’t care at all.
She cared, though. It’d be so much easier if she didn’t.
Bastian mounted the spiral stairs first, climbing down the side of the well, the bright white of his shirt fading the farther he went. He held no torch, but he flicked his lighter when he was halfway down, the glimmer of flame touching a cigarette in his mouth. Of course Bastian would smoke while they went to lay an army of screaming corpses to rest.
Gods, Lore hoped they didn’t scream this time. Her head couldn’t take it this morning.
She went next, and Jerault followed behind, all of them silent. When Lore was nearly to the bottom, she looked up.
Gabe had moved, finally. He leaned over the well, his tattooed hands braced against the sides, staring down at them. He was too far for her to see his expression, but maybe it had softened, a little, shown his signature Gabe-flavored worry. She’d take anything, at this point.
If it wasn’t there, she didn’t want to see. Lore finished the climb into the well without looking up again.
The catacombs pressed in from all sides, oppressive darkness, and Lore stood close to Bastian as she fashioned a torch from the supplies left on the packed-dirt floor, her hands trembling. “Why didn’t you bring one of these?”
Bastian shrugged, taking the half-finished torch from her and completing the job. “Seemed wasteful.” He handed it back. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Lore. We are the most powerful things down here.”
She snorted. “The Buried Goddess might beg to differ.”
“She’s dead, which makes me confident I could win an argument with Her.”
Lore gave him a weak smile and leaned in toward his body, just a bit, pulled into his gravity. He kissed her forehead, quick and quiet, fleeting enough to be imagined in the dark.
“Everything will be fine,” he murmured, a now-familiar repetition, his lips still close enough to brush her skin. “I promise I will keep you safe.”
The refrain had grown constant in the last few weeks. Bastian’s charge that he would keep her safe, keep her close, do whatever he had to do. And she would let him. Lore was too tired and cast adrift in this new life to do anything else.
Torch in hand, Bastian led the way into the tunnels. When Lore blinked, her internal map of the catacombs fell into place, but she didn’t think they’d need it. The night they’d come down here and found the rooms of corpses—the night Gabe betrayed them—was burned deep into both of their memories.
Jerault cleared his throat. “Is there… ah, should we be worried about…”
“There’s no one down here,” Lore said.
The Presque Mort’s relieved exhale was powerful enough to stir her hair. He was walking very close behind her, like he was afraid of being left in the dark. Lore couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed.
“And if there was someone down here, that’s what we have you for.” Bastian glanced at the monk with a flirtatious smile. “I’m confident you could protect us from just about anything, Jerault. I recall your stamina.”
Jerault made a noise like he’d swallowed a mouthful of wine the wrong way. Lore rolled her eyes. Bastian ashed his cigarette with a pleased smirk.
They walked quickly, none of them wanting to stay down here longer than was absolutely necessary. The flame of Bastian’s torch flickered on the pockmarked stone, and when they reached a fork in the path, it briefly illuminated the words carved into the wall.
Divinity is never destroyed. It is only echoed.
Lore scowled at it as they passed.
It didn’t take long to reach the vault that held the young, healthy bodies from the villages. Her sense of Mortem, simmering just beneath her consciousness, rose up like a black tide, nearly overwhelming.
She closed her eyes and imagined a forest. A small grove of uniform trees, a sacred place, keeping her safe, keeping her contained.
It helped, a little. Not as much as it used to.
“No screaming.” Bastian turned from the wall to Lore, brow arched, the flickering torchlight gilding his hair. “That’s something.”
Jerault shivered. “I thought you were exaggerating that part.”
“I exaggerate absolutely nothing ever, Jerault.”
The lock Anton had made with manipulated Mortem was gone. Lore pressed her hand against the stone, just to be sure, but all she felt was the Mortem inherent to the rock. “It’ll open easily.”
Bastian nodded, all business now, no more teasing the blushing monk. “We should come up with a plan, probably,” he said, stepping up by her side, like he didn’t want her to be the first one inside the vault.
“The plan is: I go in there and give them back some death.” Now that they were here, Lore wanted this over with. Get in, channel, get out. “Honestly, I probably could’ve done it myself. You didn’t have to come.”
“I would never let you do this by yourself.”
“Thus why I didn’t argue.” She said it fondly. She didn’t want to be down here alone; he knew that. “Seemed like a waste of time.”
“A wise woman,” Bastian replied.
Lore pushed the stone door open.
The room beyond was dark. Bastian found the fuse hanging from the ceiling, like he had before, and lit it from his torch. Light slowly traveled around the room, illuminating the chamber.
The blessedly silent corpses were on their plinths. Lore didn’t know if someone had come down here and rearranged them, or if they’d cleaned themselves up, walking away from the door after Lore closed it that night, settling back on their slabs like sleepwalkers returning to bed. Each body had their hands folded over their chests, hiding the eclipse scars on their palms, mirrors of the scar she and Bastian shared.
Her fingers closed instinctually.
Lore was prepared to hold her breath, tithe her heartbeat, do everything she was used to doing to drop into that space where life and death were tangible things to be manipulated. But this time was different. Her heart tithed its beat, still, but it was easy, a simple pause before picking back up again. It felt more like an afterthought, her body going along with a remembered ritual even though there was no real need.
That should concern her, probably. The floodgates of her power had been opened, and any dams she’d built against it were long since worn away.
One moment, she saw all the dim colors of the vault, and the next, everything had faded to black and white. Knots of Mortem hovered over the chest of every corpse, inverted stars.
She looked over her shoulder, to where Bastian stood, and nearly had to pull herself back out of channeling-space again. He was so bright he hurt to look at, every inch of his body flushed in white light.
